US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the Syrian conflict and trade issues in a phone call on Thursday, agreeing to continue coordinating their efforts to create a potential safe zone in Syria, the White House said. The call between the two presidents came ahead of a meeting this week between Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with their Turkish counterparts, ...

A North Korean special envoy was seen in Hanoi on Thursday, ahead of meetings with their US counterparts to make final preparations for a second summit next week between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea’s special representative for US affairs, was filmed as he left the Government Guest House in the Vietnamese capital. It has been reported that he arrived in Hanoi on Wednesday evening. Kim is scheduled to meet with US Special Envoy for ...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that tensions between Tehran and Washington were at “a maximum” rarely seen in the decades-long contentious relations of the two countries. Animosity between Washington and Tehran - bitter foes since Iran’s 1979 revolution - has intensified since May when US President Donald Trump withdrew from an international nuclear deal with Tehran and reimposed sanctions lifted under the accord. “The struggle between Iran and ...

President Donald Trump welcomed Bernie Sanders to the 2020 White House race on Tuesday, but said the Democratic hopeful probably “missed his time.” “I wish Bernie well,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It will be interesting to see how he does.” “Personally, I think he missed his time,” Trump said of Sanders, who lost the 2016 Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton. “But I like Bernie,” Trump continued, saying that the two ...

US-backed force in north Syria said on Monday they would not free foreign ISIS detainees but countries must take responsibility for them, after US President Donald Trump said extremists would be freed unless Europe takes them back. Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of foreign relations in the Kurdish-led region, said around 800 foreign fighters were being held in prisons, along with around 700 wives and 1,500 children in camps for the displaced. Dozens more detainees and relatives were arriving by the ...

Democratic lawmakers, states and others mulling legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to obtain funds to build a US-Mexico border wall face an uphill and probably losing battle in a showdown likely to be decided by the conservative-majority Supreme Court, legal experts said.After being rebuffed by the US Congress in his request for $5.7 billion to help build the wall that was a signature 2016 campaign promise, Trump on Friday invoked emergency powers ...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will arrive in Vietnam on Feb. 25 ahead of a planned second summit with US President Donald Trump, three sources with direct knowledge of Kim’s schedule told Reuters on Saturday. Trump and Kim will meet in the Vietnamese capital on Feb. 27 and 28 for the second summit between the two leaders since their historic first meeting in Singapore last June. Kim Jong Un will meet with Vietnamese officials when he arrives in Hanoi, said the sources, who requested ...

The United States and China will resume trade talks next week in Washington with time running short to ease their bruising trade war, but US President Donald Trump repeated on Friday that he may extend a March 1 deadline for a deal and keep tariffs on Chinese goods from rising. Both the United States and China reported progress in five days of negotiations in Beijing this week. Trump, speaking at a White House news conference, said the United States was closer than ever before to “having ...

President Donald Trump intends to nominate David Satterfield, a veteran diplomat with extensive experience in the Middle East, to be US ambassador to Turkey, the White House said on Friday. Satterfield has been the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs since 2017. He has previously served as the deputy US chief of mission in Iraq, ambassador to Lebanon, director for Near Eastern affairs on the National Security Council, as well as in Syria, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. At a ...

The White House confirmed Thursday that President Donald Trump will declare a national emergency in an attempt to bypass Congress and get more funding for his Mexico border wall project. Trump will also sign off on a congressional bill that would authorize a much smaller amount of wall money than the president had been demanding. “President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action, including a national emergency, to ...